An Unexpected Development
by MuddyAstronaut
Summary: When you're caught up in the quest to find the missing Horcrux, even love must be put aside. Can Hermione betray the man she loves and can Harry make a compromise with the one person he thought he could never trust? Carries on from where HBP left off.
1. Prologue

**Disclaimer: **

If I owned Harry Potter, I would be rolling in stacks and stacks of large $100 notes, not writing fanfiction on the internet. I own NOTHING. I write for my own pleasure and none of the characters are my own, neither are many of the places in which they find themselves, the many predicaments in which they are placed, thus constructing a plot, however are mine. Don't sue me. I can't afford it.

**Prologue**

His intervention may have well saved my life. In fact, I know it did. I couldn't have done it myself, I was wavering when he came in and I think he knew it. He - the other one - was right. I am no killer. My father would be ashamed. I am ashamed. I had never trusted Severus. My father had never trusted him. I always did what my father said. I had never believed there was any other way. What a fool I had been. How weak I was. I had failed. The first task that my master had set me and I had failed to kill even that doddering old fool. Severus had completed my task for me, and although I felt his loyalty finally proved… I hated him.

Conflicting emotions clouded my sight as I staggered after my Defence against the Dark Arts Professor. Staring at the back of his robes as he laboured in front of me through the Forbidden Forest, I loathed him with a loathing that before this point I had reserved only for that fatheaded Potter and his two pitiful sidekicks, Mudblood and the Weasle. Lost in my thoughts, I heard a small but distinctive thunk as I managed to successfully stumble over a tree root and almost collide with the very man who's actions were at risk of completely occupying my neural capacity.

"Draco, you must get out of here and get to Narcissa. She will keep you safe." I couldn't help the sneer that these words triggered.

"She's done a fine job up until now hasn't she Professor?" sarcasm thick in my voice. The reaction however was a little forced, for the manner in which he had phrased his command made it seem like he was going to leave me here. Alone. In the forest. Unbidden a memory rose to the surface of my mind, and I was once again struggling through the underbrush with Hagrid's great slobbering brute of a dog at my side. I shivered in revulsion as soft words snapped me out of my unwelcome reverie,

"Don't speak about your mother like that boy." The tone was commanding, dangerous even, but the effect was somewhat ruined by the fact that I could see the whites of his eyes moving as he searched our surroundings almost frantically. For the first time since I could remember, Snape looked haunted and judging by his twitchy manner he seemed to be under the impression that just looking hard enough would reveal to him the positions of our pursuers. It was as I was making this distinction that Snape looked at me as though he was suddenly able to see clearly after a lifetime of darkness.

"You could say that I did it." Well, he was succinct at the very least.

"No, I couldn't." A decisive reply. I could be succinct too. A part of me was angry though. Why would I let my greedy Professor take all the credit for something that I had been planning from the beginning of the year? Even though it had culminated in a disaster that was large enough to make me question the intelligence of my allegiance. Even as my jealous thoughts took over, I found myself wondering whether I really wanted the credit for the death of a man I had despised almost as much as I had admired. Of course, it had not been my hand holding the wand, but it amounted to the same thing didn't it? Wasn't the intent to kill the same as the deed itself? A small voice worried at me. _But you weren't intending to kill him in the end were you?_ I snuffed it out. It was not a thought I wanted picked out of my mind by the talented legilmens, Snape.

"Yes you could." The fool insisted "You could go back to school Draco, no one knows that you had a hand in it. Not even that idiot Potter could suspect the whole truth." Draco wondered why Snape's voice had suddenly lost it's more desperate edge. He wondered why the greasy haired man was raising his wand_. "Stupefy!" _With a glare of greenish light, the stunning spell hit him square in the chest, the force of it lifting him from his feet and sending him sprawling into the darkness of the Forbidden Forest. _"Accio Broom" _came the quiet mutter as Snape's broomstick came swooping silently down into the forest as he quietly thanked Dumbledore for taking off the enchantments that prohibited people from entering, or for that matter, exiting, the Tower Grounds on broomsticks.

He did not think about the many possible fates of the blond boy he had abandoned helpless on the forest floor, he spared not a moment to wonder about his safety, nor did it strike him as ironic that he was thanking his unfortunate victim for enabling his escape. It seemed to him, more fitting than anything that he, Severus Snape, should have had the last laugh.

**A/N:** This is my first HP Fanfiction on this website and I hope that you all like it. Constructive criticism is very welcome but taking a figurative crap on my story isn't. If you really don't like it, don't read it.


	2. Behind the Door

**Chapter One**

**Behind the Door**

Slivers of light appeared between his eyelashes, like unholy intruders into his beloved realm of darkness and warmth. His pupils dilated as the ever brighter light reached them and he blinked furiously in the blinding whiteness that was his prison. It was a room. A small room. Painted white and completely colorless. The iron bed frame sporting no manner of decoration and the sheets a vast sea of plain and unadorned blankness. He shivered slightly. Was this Azkaban? It was somewhat … brighter than he'd expected. Strange how the word 'bright' often seemed so synonymous with the word 'cheerful'. There was nothing cheerful about this room. Draco lay back, resting his head upon the hard, white pillow. Closing his eyes slowly in an attempt to block out the painful glare that threatened to permanently blind him. Bit by bit, the memories of the previous night returned. The flash of green, the distant yell; 'Stupefy!' Snape's betrayal. His pale hands clenched themselves into fists on the pristine sheets, blood draining from them as the knuckles whitened. Snape would pay. He, Draco Malfoy, would see to it.

His eyelids flickered as he awoke, he didn't know how long he had slept and he was reluctant to reopen eyes accustomed to darkness. He didn't like the room. It was cold, blank, utilitarian. He didn't know what to make of it. Didn't know where he was or how he had got here. The blond Slytherin twisted beneath the covers in a futile attempt to get comfortable and jerked sharply into full consciousness as a clear voice spoke, echoing unpleasantly off the bare walls.

"I see you are awake Mr. Malfoy." He sat up slowly, he would recognise that voice anywhere.

"Yes Professor." he replied quietly, turning his head slightly to meet eyes dark with emotion. Minerva McGonagall was … disheveled, that was the only word that could possibly used to describe her, and for one usually so calm and composed, it was shocking. Perhaps it was this more than anything else which drove home to him the gravity of the situation.

"You know he is dead?" It hardly seemed a question. He nodded dully. It was not altogether strange - he thought - that he was not as elated as he had anticipated being now that the end result had been obtained. The reasons for this, however, seemed to escape him.

"How long have you possessed the dark mark Mr. Malfoy?" The question rung, accusatory in his ears and he shrank from it. The green tattoo that had seemed to symbolise so much hope, now seemed not a mark of things to come, but some dark and unholy affliction. Unconsciously, his fingers moved up to stroke his arm.

"I …I….." he sighed softly, and when his voice came it was a whisper of soft defeat. "Almost a year Professor."

"And during that time you have been attempting to murder the former headmaster Albus Dumbledore, severely injuring one student and almost poisoning another, am I correct?" Minerva's voice grew harder with every word and if he wasn't so sure that the woman never lost control of herself he would have said that the pitch of her voice had increased until the last word was a shrill echo of her former calmness.

"Yes, I did." was there a murmur of regret as he spoke? Draco himself could not have said and even had he been able to, he was not sure it would have been enough. Regret was hardly a suitable tribute to the great man Dumbledore ... had been. Oh yes. He could admit that now and it sickened him. Dumbledore would still be a great man … had it not been for his own idiocy. His own grandiose ambitions. Oh yes he had despised the old man, wanted - hungered even - to kill him. But part of him had always known that his success would never sate that hunger. That hunger was not for the life of an old man. That hunger was for recognition, acceptance, respect … something that now he would never gain. Perhaps he had always known it was something he never _could_ gain. That hunger had been insatiable… but not insatiable enough to condone killing someone.

"And do you feel … do you _understand_ what has just happened?" Her eyes were red rimmed. It was strange what you noticed at times like these. Draco wished for darkness, he wished for the pain that had formerly been his life, even that was preferable to this … this _state of affairs_. Grey eyes welled up with tears that had gone unshed for far too long.

"I think I _understand_ better than you ever could." he spat as his shoulders heaved "I _saw _it happen. I _watched_ him die. I watched Severus steal his life from him as though it were a toy he had long coveted." Pale hands clenched into fists as he caught a labored breath and pulled it into his lungs. Savoring the pain. It felt good to _feel_ at last. "I saw Severus take my glory, my goal and conquer it … and I didn't care! He's welcome to it. Welcome to all he can take that filthy _wretch_." The last word was almost a scream, his eyes wild as the sound of it echoed through the hateful room. He _wanted _to scream. Wanted to feel the air rush out of his lungs in a wordless howl. Wanted to fill the room with a semblance of colour and watch it dissolve into darkness around him. Instead he whispered, this time the regret infused his tone with irrefutable sadness. "I would never have killed him."

* * *

Hermione's eyes filled with tears - not for the first time - as the remaining students filed slowly out of the entrance and onto the stone steps, heading down towards the lake. She let the air, heavy with the perfume of wildflowers caress her face, and turned her face, like a sunflower, towards the bright sun, seeking comfort in it's warming rays. She saw the funeral through eyes blurred with tears. She didn't bother dashing them away, it seemed to her as though the blurred memory would, in turn, enable her to blur the lines between reality and fantasy and make believe that none of this had ever happened. She was vaguely aware that her head was resting on Ron's shoulder and he was stroking her hair. She choked with grief and felt his hand steady her as her shoulders heaved with desperate sobs. She was barely aware of the service and straightened finally as out of the flames, his tomb appeared. Hermione did not even flinch at the rain of arrows, she merely looked on, drying her eyes with her sleeve and calming a face blotched with tears. She hardly batted an eyelid at Harry's talk with Ginny and she did not raise a hand after him when he left. She felt cold inside. Cold and alone. Smoothing her skirt, she rose from her seat and turned from the remaining people, feeling disgust well up inside her as she glimpsed the ugly, squat figure of Umbridge and the unmistakable lion-like figure of that prat Scrimgeour. They should never have come here. A funeral was for people to pay their last respects. Those two had never had any respect for Dumbledore.

* * *

Harry was focused as he packed his trunk up in the room he had considered his home ever since his first day at Hogwarts. Though he looked around it with regret, he knew what had to be done and he did not have the luxury of hiding any more. Voldemort had killed every last person he loved. Every last person who had stood between him and Harry. There could be no more hiding. There was no one left to protect him and he would not secrete himself away until the inevitable happened and he was found and killed. He was going to destroy Voldemort or die in the attempt. He was going to hunt him down and make him pay for every last life he had stolen in his pitiful quest for power and immortality.

Harry rolled up the last pair of socks and scanned the room for anything else he had left behind in his haste to be gone from Hogwarts. Harry knew he had to return to number one Privit Drive before he made the journey to the Burrow for Bill and Fleur's wedding, but then he would finally be free to revenge himself upon the greatest enemy of wizard kind. As he closed his trunk firmly and began dragging it to the staircase, Hermione appeared in the doorway. He almost started at the sound of her voice but finally curiosity got the better of him.

"Harry, Professor McGonagall's down in the Common Room and she wants to see you. She says it's urgent that she speak with you immediately." Harry nodded his head and ducking out of the dorm he followed her down into the room filled with the comfortable squashy armchairs and the large hearth which in winter brightened the whole area while casting leaping shadows on the walls and peoples faces. He remembered more care free days when the most dire thing he had to worry about was handing in his potions essay on time. Yet he supposed, life at Hogwarts had never really been uneventful. Even in his first year there had been Quirrel and the Philosopher's Stone to deal with. Still, Dumbledore's death had taken everything to a whole new level and it was with regret and no small amount of trepidation that he took in the sight of the Gryffindor Common Room as it was now and promised himself that he would never forget it. Some of his happiest moments involved this room and he had to suppress a grin at the memories of the after match celebrations, Ron's best saves and Oliver Wood's ecstatic whooping.

"Mr. Potter." McGonagall's voice cut through his musings sharply and he turned to face her, wondering what she wanted to speak to him about. "Come with me, your presence is required in the Hospital Wing without delay." Harry had just enough time to exchange confused glances with Hermione before he was whisked along behind Minerva and out the portrait hole. Harry wanted to ask exactly why they were going to the Hospital Wing, but recent events had taught him discretion and so he speculated in silence as he tread the familiar path. Entering the Hospital Wing they were accompanied by Madame Pomfrey to an area in which he had never before been. In fact, he had never even known it had existed! Before the school nurse opened the door, McGonagall laid a hand on her shoulder causing her to hesitate and she drew Harry aside.

"Harry, I must warn you that you are not going to like what is on the other side of this door but I must council you to keep your cool. There are things that must be heard and there are things that must be done. Dumbledore trusted you to do what was right and I believe that I must trust his judgment." The silence was more eloquent than words as they both remembered that Dumbledore had also trusted Severus Snape to do what was right and that mistake had been fatal, yet if McGonagall believed he could be trusted, he was not going to prove her wrong.

"I will keep my cool Professor." he said slowly as his mind ticked over furiously. _What in hell is behind that door_?

dun dun dun !

* * *

**A.N.**

Well hey there! There goes my first chapter, I hope you enjoyed it! Please review and tell me what you think. Took me a while to write it and I'm not sure if it's gonna go well. For the moment I have decided not to make it slash, meh, change is the spice of life! ConCrit v. welcome!

Also, sorry for my erratic punctuation! I have a strange liking for separating my text into illogical units with numerous punctuation marks in a manner decipherable only by me. My bad!

Thanks to my Prologue reviewer! (yes, reviewer. There is no plural) … lol

- **Medicated Drama Queen**; Well, I did have one other fan fiction about 3 years ago on an ezboard site which has since been deleted, so this is my first fic in a loooong time! Thanks for the review and I hope you enjoyed the first chapter!


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